Articles

By David Blewett*
June 2009

Since the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas I have had many opportunities to speak about the war and the current situation in Gaza. During the discussions that follow each presentation there is one topic that always seems to come up – Israel and “disproportionate force.”

The claim that Israel used “disproportionate force” against Palestinians is not new; the same charge was made against Israel during the Lebanon War of 1982, the “Iron Fist” response to the 1988 intifada and during the Lebanon War of 2006. The accusation of “disproportionate force” has been made so many times by so many reporters and commentators that many people now believe it is true.

When I ask people what they mean by “disproportionate force,” some are honest enough to admit that they do not know – they tell me, “we hear it all the time in relation to Israel” and they want to understand why. Others think they know exactly what “disproportionate force” means and quickly point to the lopsided casualty numbers and the widespread destruction in Gaza as proof that Israel used excessive force against the Palestinians.

RULES OF WAR

According to the rules of modern warfare, a military operation is considered legal if it is directed at a “legitimate military objective” and “proportionate.” It is the word “proportionate” that causes confusion when used in reference to an armed conflict.

Much of the criticism of Israel’s defensive tactics seems to be based on the assumption that “proportionate” means to fight on a level of equality. According to that kind of thinking, what would be a proportionate response to the thousands of rockets fired at homes, schools, playgrounds and parks of innocent Israelis over the past eight years? It is ridiculous to think that Israel would respond in kind and launch rockets into populated areas of Gaza hoping to kill as many Palestinians civilians as possible for no military advantage. Addressing the misunderstanding of “proportionality,” Richard Cohen has written: “Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness. For Israel, a small country within reach, we are finding out, of a missile launched from an enemy’s backyard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide.”²

When military personnel speak of proportionate or disproportionate use of force, they are not thinking of revenge but a very complex and difficult military equation that is focused on the overall threat being faced. According to Rosalyn Higgins, President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, proportionality “cannot be [understood] in relation to any specific prior injury – it has to be [understood] in relation to the overall legitimate objective of ending the aggression.”³ In other words, proportionality is more about motive than numbers, that is, whether force was exclusively used to end the aggression. Use of force becomes disproportionate when it is intentionally used against civilians, or when “the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.”⁴

Military strategists accept the reality that in any armed conflict there will be unintended civilian deaths and they work to keep those deaths to a minimum or, as strategists put it, to make sure that those casualties are “not excessive” in relation to achieving the goals of the conflict. In the case of Israel’s war with Hamas, the calculation would have to do with assuring that the number of civilians killed not be excessive to the damage that would be caused if the firing of rockets into Israel were to continue, taking into consideration the likelihood that weapons smuggled to Hamas will undoubtedly become more advanced and threaten all of Israel.

RAPID DOMINANCE

Concern about proportionality in war is not an issue unique to Israel; the United States military also works with proportionality calculations. In an article published in Foreign Affairs⁵, General Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined his vision for efficient and decisive military action, which became known as “The Powell Doctrine.” His idea was not to match opposing power but to completely overwhelm it with planes, tanks, technology, manpower and will. He was convinced that force used this way would make the war short and victory certain.

General Powell’s battle plan was based on a military strategy known as “Rapid Dominance,” a plan that outlines the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dynamic maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force in order to confuse an adversary’s understanding of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.

According to the men who developed this strategy, Harlan Ullman and James Wade, the goal of Rapid Dominance is

to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe . . . [To] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary’s perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels. An adversary would be rendered totally impotent and vulnerable to our actions.⁶

Clearly, Rapid Dominance is the model on which General Powell and his aides designed their battle plan for the Iraq War and on which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) developed its strategy against Hamas.

Proportionality calculations always look to the future and since the future is unknown, the best anyone can do, at least until the conflict is ended, is speculate about proportionality. That Israel was accused of using “disproportionate force” early on the first day of the recent fighting, before anyone could know how many people would be killed, indicates that Israel’s critics were more eager to accuse Israel of doing something evil than making constructive contributions to the situation. Speaking on this rush to criticize, Michael Walzer has said:

The commentators and critics using it [the term “disproportionate force”] today, however, are not being cautious at all; they are not making any kind of measured judgment, not even a speculative kind. “Disproportionate” violence for them is simply violence they don’t like, or it is violence committed by people they don’t like.⁷

That is important! Those who quickly objected to Israel’s tactics against Hamas are often those who are quick to criticize any Israeli response to terror under any circumstance.

To focus criticism only on the IDF in its fight against Hamas, while overlooking the culpability of Hamas in the current situation, enables Hamas to continue its outrageous behavior and moves any prospect of peace further away. One principle is clear to any honest analyst – as long as Israel, and not Hamas, is blamed for civilian casualties and property damage, Hamas will continue to use civilians as human shields and violate every basic rule of international humanitarian law.

* David Blewett is the National Director of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI)

1. Hamas is an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Arabic, “Hamas” is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamia – Islamic Resistance Movement.
2. Richard Cohen. “. . . No, It’s Survival,” The Washington Post, July 25, 2006.
3. Cited in “Responding to Hamas Attacks in Gaza – Issues of Proportionality Background Paper,” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, March 2008.
4. Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, The Hague, February 9, 2008, http://www.icc-cpi.int/library/organs/otp/OTP_letter_to_senders_re_Iraq_9_February_2006.pdf.
5. “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Winter 1992/93.
   
6. Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade. Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (National Defense University, 1966), p. xxiv-xxv.
7. “On Proportionality,” The New Republic, January 8, 2009.